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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 12, 2011 19:34:44 GMT 1
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 12, 2011 19:49:27 GMT 1
Another STA strawman post. Solitons apart form being a single wave, [which condradicts your silly comment].. may be a good analogy for a 'photon'.. And how about this for total rubbish! Hahahahaha! A classic post-hoc fallacy! "If it wasn't for Newton invention of gravity, we'd all fall into the sun ....." It is very noticeable that the models used to explain the operation of transistors studiously (and very effectively) totally ignore QM Although QM gives an explanation of the operation of a transistor, QM is rarely used for that purpose. It can hardly be said to be necessary to either making transistors or understanding the operation of transistors.
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 12, 2011 20:04:03 GMT 1
I was talking about the detailed properties of doped silicon semiconductors, NOT some noddy model of a transistor................ And a bit more history: In short, understanding in detail the properties of semi-conductors (essential if you are trying to design smaller/cheaper/faster components) means you have to understand the basic solid-state physics, which is fundamentally based on the quantum properties of matter. Else we'd be stuck with vacuum tubes and valves, still waiting for our PC (which would now be the size of a large room) to warm up, putting up fly-papers to try and dissuade the real bugs, and getting used to (all over again), that nice smell of warm dust as the valves warmed up.......................... Which is why nowadays they teach quantum theory to (some) engineers: www.ece.lehigh.edu/~tansu/pdf/Tansu_Syllabus_ECE_450_Applied_QM_Fall2008.pdfI rest my case.
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Post by carnyx on Jan 12, 2011 20:15:34 GMT 1
@sta
More backpedalling .. you did not use this analogy at the time so why are you trying to rewrite the actualité now?
And, if classical physics is so WRONG as you claim , why teach it? Isn't that immoral? Tantamount to telling lies to children?
Or is it because QM is unteachable? Maybe because it is partial? That it is still a collection of engineering tools? Too many potential paradoxes?
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 12, 2011 20:18:02 GMT 1
Because it is approximately right, (unlike you, you idiot).
Stop pretending you don't even understand the totally bleedin' obvious.................even you couldn't be that stupid.
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Post by carnyx on Jan 12, 2011 20:52:12 GMT 1
And ..... it did not rely on the a-priori existence of QM theory to produce the first transistor.
Anyone who had played about with metal oxide rectifiers at the time, as I did, would have seen that IF somehow a third electrode were to be interposed .. then a kind of valve could result. And, it was no surprise when Shockley produced his point-contact transistor diodes ... using the technology that had been evolved since the earliest days of radio in the form of the 'cats's whisker'
(Tell me, could YOU make one 'from scratch' ( pardon the pun) today?
And whilst QM is a useful tool, it was not actually necessary to initiate semiconductor technology. What is really to the point, is that there was no real requirement for the early transistor, unlike say the Magnetron. (And, re computing, requirements were being satisfied by a different kind of solid-state technology in the form of magnetic amplifiers)
The transistor was a curiosity, until a Japanese manufacturer of portable radios saw that they could give him a lighter smaller product and he took a license from Bell. About 3 years later you could buy one of his 'toy' radios and also his transistors to fool about with. Not a QM formula in sight, except some tortuous stuff about valency and hole-pairs, which was not actually needed to get the blessed things to work.
The next big step was the switch to silicon, and the idea of the IC which depended more on a knowledge and application of cloisonné etching techniques, than QM
So claims that these physical theories are harbingers of technology are generally incorrect, and have more to do with the idea that theoretical cosmology/physics is a branch of theology, concerned with the seach for revealed truths.. in other words is a religious calling.
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 12, 2011 21:21:28 GMT 1
And ..... it did not rely on the a-priori existence of QM theory to produce the first transistor. Anyone who had played about with metal oxide rectifiers at the time, as I did, would have seen that IF somehow a third electrode were to be interposed .. then a kind of valve could result. And, it was no surprise when Shockley produced his point-contact transistor diodes ... using the technology that had been evolved since the earliest days of radio in the form of the 'cats's whisker' (Tell me, could YOU make one 'from scratch' ( pardon the pun) today? And whilst QM is a useful tool, it was not actually necessary to initiate semiconductor technology. What is really to the point, is that there was no real requirement for the early transistor, unlike say the Magnetron. (And, re computing, requirements were being satisfied by a different kind of solid-state technology in the form of magnetic amplifiers) The transistor was a curiosity, until a Japanese manufacturer of portable radios saw that they could give him a lighter smaller product and he took a license from Bell. About 3 years later you could buy one of his 'toy' radios and also his transistors to fool about with. Not a QM formula in sight, except some tortuous stuff about valency and hole-pairs, which was not actually needed to get the blessed things to work. The next big step was the switch to silicon, and the idea of the IC which depended more on a knowledge and application of cloisonné etching techniques, than QM So claims that these physical theories are harbingers of technology are generally incorrect, and have more to do with the idea that theoretical cosmology/physics is a branch of theology, concerned with the seach for revealed truths.. in other words is a religious calling. I doubt - in fact I know - that the person who considers you 'an idiot' will not have a clue how a transistor works (until she rapidly looks it up and paraphrases) using either the classical descriptions or the QM descriptions, will have no idea of the T or H parameters, will not know the difference between an NPN or FET transistor, will not have a clue about the difference in design between an audio and microwave transistor, will have only the vaguest idea of alpha, will be totally unaware of the application of tunnel diodes, is doubtful about what the term 'transistor' actually means, does not know the junction potential of Ge and Si diodes, will be lost about the efficiency of Class A and C modes of operation, hasn't a clue about the NF of RF transistors, doesn't know what a long-tailed pair is, hasn't an inkling how transistor logical gates are constructed, is ignorant of the Farads of a reverse biased P-N junction, and is totally unaware that engineers can construct such devices without any deep knwledge of QM, make functioning devices that power her PC and manufacture circuits on microchips that incorporate all these devices by the million and produce input/output characteristics that fall within very tight specifications In other words, the person that so freely calls other 'idiots' herself speaks from a base of almost total ignorance
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 13, 2011 13:30:20 GMT 1
I could imagain a weird world where we could have come up with solid-state transistors etc via some sort of rule of thumb and some sort of empirical model of semiconductors (but no actual understanding), but this is not how it happened in this world.
And current semiconductor engineers realise that a knowledge of the actual quantum physics of the materials they work with is the best way to go.
Either way, it doesn't affect one whit the main point, which is that quantum physics explains WHY semiconductor devices behave as they do, and NOTHING else does.
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 13, 2011 13:35:37 GMT 1
A motor mechanic knows a lot more than myself about what lies under the bonnet of my car, but that doesn't alter the fact that I know more about the laws of thermodynamics (probably) than he does. And that understanding the basic principles of the internal combustion engine (as opposed to understanding the technology of a particular implementation of such a device within a particular vehicle) requires thermodynamics, just as understanding semiconductor devices requires quantum theory.
It's the difference, in effect, between HOW a device works, and WHY it works. Some people seem to think that the former is enough to count as understanding..................
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 13, 2011 13:51:33 GMT 1
Oh Really? Have you not heard of Scott Russel's 'wave of translation'? I wonder if this tiresome person has any idea how a half-wave or full wave rectifier works? Perhaps not Or how digital instrument sample sinusoids to measure voltage and curent? I think not Or how analogue signals are sampled to convert them into digital signals? I suppose not Or how standing waves are monitored to match transmission lines? Evidently not Or indeed in RF engineering individual cyles of any sub-division of a cycle can be gated through switched-ferrite devices. Not a clue perhaps? She is displaying immense ignorance (and once more giving the insight to her claims to be a physicist) by maintaining that 'You can't chop up a continuous single-frequency waveform into individual peaks and troughs -- such a thing doesn't make physical sense'. It happens every day!
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 13, 2011 14:49:55 GMT 1
You are confusing what happens every day at a CLASSICAL level, with what happens when you move towards smaller and smaller energy transfers.
Which is the whole reason why the photon hypothesis was introduced.
So, take a simple, SMALL system. We want to deliver energy via an em wave to a metal surface (irradiate it with light), and what we are looking for is transfering enough energy to single electrons to eject them from the surface. About as small an energy transfer as you can imagine!
Based on what happens with larger transfers, the obvious prediction would be -- it won't matter what the frequency is, we just take the power, and can then calculate how many cycles we'd need to deliver the energy. And if we have very low power, we predict that we'll have to wait longer before we get any ejected. Whereas if we have high power, we should get loads.
Except the great big enormous glaring problem was that was not what was observed.
Instead, light of the wrong frequency, no matter how powerful, did bugger all. Whereas at the right frequency, no matter how feeble the power, electrons were ejected.
The ONLY explanation that worked was that the classical ideas of 'continuous' waves and continuous delivery of energy were wrong. True, when you have lots of these things that were later called photons, the collective behaviour (in many cases) could be explained using simple classical ideas -- and we could pretend that a thing such as continuous, single-frequency waveform exists, and that it can be chopped and mucked about with in all the ways that electronics can.
But fundamentally, this is only an APPROXIMATION. Hence making claims about what you can do, based only on what you can do at the classical level, are doomed to failure, because they have already been shown not to work by the very photoelectric effect that started quantum theory.
So, totally IRRELEVANT, and just shows that the person who wrote this has no idea whatsoever as to HOW classical ideas failed, and WHY the photon hypothesis was introduced. Hence whatever they have to say about the validity (or otherwise) of photons can safely be dismissed as utterly worthless. Hoist by their own petard.............................
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Post by carnyx on Jan 13, 2011 15:12:11 GMT 1
@sta
A basic principle of classic Harmony? A musical analog? .... Sympathetic oscillations? As we experience when we 'tune in ' to the BBC.
Hardly a groundbreaking insight, surely?
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 13, 2011 15:17:38 GMT 1
Enough to win Einstein his Nobel prize for explaining it!
So, now we see how little you know about the matter you are attempting to discuss.......................
It isn't a resonance phenomenon for starters, hence classical wav anologies are no good.
GO read a book and learn the basics..........
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Post by Progenitor A on Jan 13, 2011 17:31:03 GMT 1
A basic principle of classic Harmony? A musical analog? .... Sympathetic oscillations? As we experience when we 'tune in ' to the BBC. Hardly a groundbreaking insight, surely? ;D Have you noticed how absurd our 'physicist' is? Here she writes: It is pointed out to her that in fact sine-waves are chopped up every day in electronics: Wherein she responds: You are confusing what happens every day at a CLASSICAL level..... I wonder if anyone understands what she ir talking about? Our resident 'physicist certainly does not ........... So, totally IRRELEVANT, and just shows that the person who wrote this has no idea whatsoever as to HOW classical ideas failed, and WHY the photon hypothesis was introduced. Hence whatever they have to say about the validity (or otherwise) of photons can safely be dismissed as utterly worthless. Hoist by their own petard............................. Does anyone see the correltyion between 'not being able to chop up sinusoids and this statement? ;D What a tiresome, tiresome little girl pretending to be a physicist! In fact I have almot had enough of her autism
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Post by speakertoanimals on Jan 13, 2011 17:51:08 GMT 1
Which, as I keep pointing out, is at the CLASSICAL level, where when we are dealing with the effect of billions of photons, the quantum nature of the em radiation can be neglected, and a simple classical model (ie Maxwells equations) suffices.
Chopping up sine waves in electronics actually has nothing whatsoever to do with case in point, which is that a single oscillation of a sine wave (ie the supposed photon, as some would have it), makes no sense in terms of Maxwells equations -- it isn't a solution, it doesn't propagate. Only infinite sinusoids (or sums of them, which are actually totally independant) are valid solutions. Not a single oscillation.
Yet in quantum terms, a single photon DOES make sense, and is what we see in experiments such as the photoelectric effect.
There is a fundamental inconsistency between the continuum classical picture, and the experimental results. What was developed as a result (the photon) DOESN'T have a classical analog (either a single oscillation, or a soliton), which is kind of the whole point, else no one would have bothered to overturn classical physics in the first place, and einstein might never have got his Nobel prize.
Tiresome? I must be doing something right then! Almost had enough? Maybe you'll stop wasting everyones time with this nonsense then, and let us get back to actually having a meaningful discussion about physics.
You could at least put a little effort into trying some new insults -- this repeated insistence on sexism, ageism, and autism is getting a bit old now. Unfortunately, ignorance never seems to go out of fashion...............
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